Parking charges at Cambridge Park and Ride sites

News that motorists are to be charged £1 to park in addition to their Park & Ride bus fares has been released. How this will affect Busway passengers remains to be seen. Busway route A serves Trumpington Park & Ride, but the slow detour of this bus route around the Addenbrooke's Hospital campus makes it a poor choice for people wanting to travel into Cambridge city centre. It seems that the County Council wishes to reduce the Park & Ride's  £1 million deficit, and they are hoping to raise money from people who park then cycle or walk.

Read Cambridge News article here.

Autumn fruits

The Busway is proving to be a great resource for blackberry pickers. See Cambridge News article which includes a photo of a bus passing a picker here.

There are also a few apples trees along the route (apple cores thrown out of passing trains  more than 40 years ago?) and even the odd plum tree.

Apple tree beside the busway near Oakington

BAM Nuttall dispute in Hunts Post

Two letters in this week's Hunts Post  (11 September, page 6) about the County Council's dispute with BAM Nuttall over the building of the busway.

One suggest that the County Council has misled the public over the matter, and the other talks about the overrun of costs falling as a burden on the taxpayer.

Luton-Dunstable busway opening date

The guided busway between Luton and Dunstable is due to open on 25th September. See article on BBC website here.

Like the Cambridgeshire busway, this has been built by NAM Nuttall and replaces a disused railway track that could have been reopened and connected to the national rail network. The project has run late and is over budget.

For information about the service that will run see this page.

The Luton Busway will be served initially by four bus routes provided by three bus companies. Arriva will run routes A (Houghton Regis to Luton Station Interchange, Luton Airport Parkway Station and London Luton Airport). Centrebus runs routes B (Downside Jardine Way to Luton Station Interchange) and E ( Toddington Green to Luton Galaxy Centre). Grant Palmer runs route C (Hillcroft Dunstable to Luton Station Interchange). Details here.

Each company has its own fare structure but the multi-operator Hip-Hop ticket ( £4.60 per day, £18.50 per week) which can be used on all Arriva and Centrebus services is being extended to cover the Grant Palmer busway service C.

BAM Nuttall's decision to settle out of court

Hugh Taylor has emailed me the following, which is about why BAM Nuttall decided to settle out of court with Cambridgeshire County Council:

Tantalisingly, the New Civil Engineer website posted a news story on 
Wednesday, with this beneath the headline:

"Bam Nuttall has explained its decision to settle in its dispute with 
Cambridgeshire County Council over costs to build its guided busway."

http://www.nce.co.uk/news/business/nce-live-news-updates-wednesday-4-september-uk-slips-to-10th-in-global-competitive-index/8652674.article?blocktitle=NCE-Live-Updates&contentID=8860

Given that Bam Nuttall has consistently refused to comment on the 
settlement, this was an intriguing prospect. Unfortunately, only NCE 
subscribers are permitted access to the details - and the story doesn't 
even turn up in the daily package fed to content aggregators such as 
Factiva or ABI/INFORM.

What does turn up in the package for 5 September, though, is a story 
about both the Cambridge and Luton busways. Much of the Cambridge 
section of this is a reworking of the County Council's press release, 
but there are a few points which are of interest, given that they come 
from an unbiased source, and one with a considerable reputation in the 
engineering world.

First, there's confirmation of the figures: "... Bam Nuttall last year 
issued a £43M counterclaim - so the settlement represents a £76M 
climbdown from the contractor's original position." This is the sum the 
County Council would have had to pay if it hadn't challenged the 
contractor's bill.

Then there's a clear explanation of just how little the "extra" work 
cost the Council: "It also means construction of the busway, which the 
council says was handed over two years late, cost the local authority 
£84.7M - just £800,000 more than the original price."

And finally this: "Bam Nuttall parent Royal Bam Group said the 
settlement had already been incorporated in its figures for the half 
year to 31 June 2013 and so would have no impact on profit forecast for 
the full year." I take this to mean that Bam Nuttall had anticipated 
this settlement some months ago - in other words, they had effectively 
given up the fight before the summer.

For anyone new to this saga, the NCE story provides a handy summary:

"The busway missed its original opening date in 2009, and the council 
charged Bam Nuttall a daily £14,000 fee for late delivery... After a 
number of attempts, the scheme was finally handed over in May 2011. Bam 
Nuttall then filed its counterclaim, citing mismanagement by the 
council's project manager Atkins as the cause of the delay. The council 
brought in Jackson Civil Engineering to complete additional work on the 
busway before it was finally commissioned in August 2011."

Article about busway in TransportXtra

There is a very informative and readable article about the Cambridgeshire busway in TransportXtra, issue 630, 5 September 2013. It can be viewed online here. The article provides an overview of the development of the busway, how it has performed  and its economic impact for the local area.

TransportXtra describes itself as 'the ultimate transport resource'. It features news, analysis and comment from the leading transport trade press.

(Thanks to Hugh Taylor for alerting me to this article)

Busway and traffic levels on A14

An article has appeared in the Cambridge News suggesting that despite the heavy levels of passengers using the busway, traffic on the A14 hasn't declined. Read the article here.

Thanks to Hugh,  who is a regular reader of this blog, for identifying the relevant page on Cambridgeshire County Council's website that contains these figures here and  see the full Traffic Monitoring Report (published 14 May 2013) here.